Editing François-René de Chateaubriand (section)

== Biography ==

=== Early years and exile ===
[[File:Combourg.jpg|thumb|The [[château de Combourg]], where Chateaubriand spent his childhood]]

{{More citations needed section|date=November 2021}}Born in [[Saint-Malo]] on 4 September 1768, the last of ten children, Chateaubriand grew up at his family's castle (the [[château de Combourg]]) in [[Combourg]], Brittany. His father, René de Chateaubriand, was a [[sea captain]] turned [[ship-owner]] and [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trader]]. His mother's maiden name was Apolline de Bedée. Chateaubriand's father was a morose, uncommunicative man, and the young Chateaubriand grew up in an atmosphere of gloomy solitude, only broken by long walks in the Breton countryside and an intense friendship with his sister Lucile. His youthful solitude and wild desire produced a suicide attempt with a hunting rifle, although the weapon failed to discharge.

English agriculturist and pioneering travel writer [[Arthur Young (agriculturist)|Arthur Young]] visited Comburg in 1788 and he described the immediate environs of the "romantic" Chateau de Combourg thusly:

<blockquote>"SEPTEMBER 1st.  To Combourg, the country has a savage aspect; husbandry not much further advanced, at least in skill, than among the [[Hurons]], which appears incredible amidst inclosures; the people almost as wild as their country, and their town of Combourg one of the most brutal filthy places that can be seen; mud houses, no windows, and a pavement so broken, as to impede all passengers, but ease none - yet here is a chateau, and inhabited; who is this Mons. de Chateaubriant, the owner, that has nerves strung for a residence amidst such filth and poverty?  Below this hideous heap of wretchedness is a fine lake..."<ref>{{cite book |last=Young |first=Arthur |date=1794 |title=Travels During the Years 1787, 1788 & 1789; Undertaken More Particularly With a View of Ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France |publisher=W. Richardson, Royal Exchange, London |page=97|edition=Second }}</ref></blockquote>

Chateaubriand was educated in [[Dol-de-Bretagne|Dol]], [[Rennes]] and [[Dinan]]. For a time he could not make up his mind whether he wanted to be a naval officer or a priest, but at the age of seventeen, he decided on a military career and gained a commission as a second lieutenant in the French Army based at [[Navarre]]. Within two years, he had been promoted to the rank of [[Captain (Land)|captain]]. He visited Paris in 1788 where he made the acquaintance of [[Jean-François de La Harpe]], [[André Chénier]], [[Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes]] and other leading writers of the time. When the [[French Revolution]] broke out, Chateaubriand was initially sympathetic, but as events in Paris - and throughout the countryside (including, presumably, "wretched" "brutal" and "filthy" Combourg) - became more violent he wisely decided to journey to North America in 1791.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/dialjournallitcrit65chicrich#page/16/mode/2up Nitze, William A.] "Chateaubriand in America", The Dial, Vol. LXV, June–December 1918.</ref> He was given the idea to leave Europe by [[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes]], who also encouraged him to do some botanical studies.<ref>Tapié, V.-L. (1965) Chateaubriand. Seuil.</ref>

=== Journey to America ===
[[File:François-René de Chateaubriand by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy Trioson.jpg|left|thumb|190px|Young Chateaubriand, by [[Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson|Anne-Louis Girodet]] (c. 1790)]]
In ''Voyage en Amérique'', published in 1826, Chateaubriand writes that he arrived in Philadelphia on 10 July 1791. He visited [[New York City|New York]], [[Boston]] and [[Lexington, Massachusetts|Lexington]], before leaving by boat on the [[Hudson River]] to reach [[Albany, New York|Albany]].<ref name="Chateaubriand_1826">Chateaubriand, F-R. (1826) Voyage en Amérique</ref> He then followed the [[Mohawk Trail]] up the [[Niagara Falls]] where he broke his arm and spent a month in recovery in the company of a Native American tribe. Chateaubriand then describes Native American tribes' customs, as well as zoological, political and economic consideration. He then says that a raid along the [[Ohio River]], the [[Mississippi River]], [[Louisiana]] and [[Florida]] took him back to [[Philadelphia]], where he embarked on the ''Molly'' in November to go back to France.<ref name="Chateaubriand_1826"/>

This experience provided the setting for his exotic novels ''[[Les Natchez]]'' (written between 1793 and 1799 but published only in 1826), ''[[Atala (novella)|Atala]]'' (1801) and ''[[René (novella)|René]]'' (1802). His vivid, captivating descriptions of nature in the sparsely settled American [[Deep South]] were written in a style that was very innovative for the time and spearheaded what later became the Romantic movement in France. As early as 1916,<ref>Lebègue, R. (1965) Le problème du voyage de Chateaubriand en Amérique. Journal des Savants, 1,1 from http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jds_0021-8103_1965_num_1_1_1104</ref> some scholars have cast doubt on Chateaubriand's claims that he was granted an interview with [[George Washington]] and that he actually lived for a time with the Native Americans he wrote about. Critics{{who|date=August 2024}} have questioned the veracity of entire sections of Chateaubriand's claimed travels, notably his passage through the [[Mississippi Valley]], Louisiana and Florida.

=== Return to France ===
Chateaubriand returned to France in 1792 and subsequently joined the army of [[House of Bourbon|Royalist]] ''[[émigré]]s'' in [[Koblenz]] under the leadership of [[Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé|Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Condé]]. Under strong pressure from his family, he married a young aristocratic woman, also from Saint-Malo, whom he had never previously met, Céleste Buisson de la Vigne (in later life, Chateaubriand was notoriously unfaithful to her, having a series of love affairs). His military career came to an end when he was wounded at the [[Siege of Thionville (1792)|Siege of Thionville]], a major clash between Royalist troops (of which Chateaubriand was a member) and the [[French Revolutionary Army]]. Half-dead, he was taken to [[Jersey]] and exiled to England, leaving his wife behind.{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}}

=== Exile in London ===
Chateaubriand spent most of his exile in poverty in London, scraping a living offering French lessons and doing translation work, but also worked as a French teacher in [[Beccles]] in [[Suffolk]]. While he was in Suffolk he fell in love with Charlotte Ives, the daughter of a clergyman living in [[Bungay]], but the romance ended when he was forced to reveal he was already married.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/chateaubriandhis00grib/mode/2up|title=Chateaubriand and his court of women|first=Francis|last=Gribble|publisher=Chapman and Hall Ltd|location=London|date=1909|page=51-56}}</ref> During his time in Britain, Chateaubriand also became familiar with [[English literature]]. This reading, particularly of [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' (which he later translated into French prose), had a deep influence on his own literary work.

His exile forced Chateaubriand to examine the causes of the French Revolution, which had cost the lives of many of his family and friends; these reflections inspired his first work, ''Essai sur les Révolutions'' (1797). An attempt in 18th-century style to explain the French Revolution, it predated his subsequent, romantic style of writing and was largely ignored. A major turning point in Chateaubriand's life was his conversion back to the [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] faith of his childhood around 1798.

===Consulate and Empire===
{{further|French Consulate}}
{{further|First French Empire}}
Chateaubriand took advantage of the amnesty issued to ''émigrés'' to return to France in May 1800 (under the [[French Consulate]]); he edited the ''[[Mercure de France]]''. In 1802, he won fame with ''[[The Genius of Christianity|Génie du christianisme]]'' ("The Genius of Christianity"), an [[apologetics|apologia]] for the Catholic faith which contributed to the post-revolutionary religious revival in France. It also won him the favour of [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon Bonaparte]], who was eager to win over the Catholic Church at the time.

James McMillan argues that a Europe-wide Catholic Revival emerged from the change in the cultural climate from intellectually-oriented classicism to emotionally-based [[Romanticism]]. He concludes that Chateaubriand's book:
{{blockquote|did more than any other single work to restore the credibility and prestige of Christianity in intellectual circles and launched a fashionable rediscovery of the Middle Ages and their Christian civilisation. The revival was by no means confined to an intellectual elite, however, but was evident in the real, though uneven, rechristianisation of the French countryside.<ref>James McMillan, "Catholic Christianity in France from the Restoration to the separation of church and state, 1815-1905." in Sheridan Gilley and Brian Stanley, eds., ''The Cambridge history of Christianity'' (2014) 8 217-232</ref>}}

Appointed secretary of the legation to the [[Holy See]] by Napoleon, he accompanied [[Joseph Fesch|Cardinal Fesch]] to Rome. But the two men soon quarrelled, and Chateaubriand was appointed minister to the [[Rhodanic Republic|Republic of Valais]] in November 1803.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.napoleon.org/histoire-des-2-empires/articles/quand-le-valais-etait-francais/|title=Quand le Valais était français|access-date=2 June 2021|language=fr|website=[[Fondation Napoléon]]|author=Czouz-Tornare, Alain-Jacques}}</ref> He resigned his post in disgust after Napoleon ordered the execution in 1804 of Louis XVI's cousin, [[Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien]]. Chateaubriand was, after his resignation, completely dependent on his literary efforts. However, and quite unexpectedly, he received a large sum of money from the Russian Tsarina [[Elizabeth Alexeievna (Louise of Baden)|Elizabeth Alexeievna]]. She had seen him as a defender of Christianity and thus worthy of her royal support.

Chateaubriand used his new-found wealth in 1806 to visit Greece, [[Asia Minor]], the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Tunisia, and Spain. The notes he made on his travels later formed part of a prose epic, ''Les Martyrs'', set during the Roman [[Persecution of Christians|persecution of early Christianity]]. His notes also furnished a running account of the trip itself, published in 1811 as the ''Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem'' (''Itinerary from Paris to [[Jerusalem]]''). The Spanish stage of the journey inspired a third novella, ''Les aventures du dernier Abencérage'' (''The Adventures of the Last [[Abencerrages|Abencerrage]]''), which appeared in 1826.

On his return to France at the end of 1806, he published a severe criticism of Napoleon, comparing him to [[Nero]] and predicting the emergence of a new [[Tacitus]]. Napoleon famously threatened to have Chateaubriand sabred on the steps of the [[Tuileries Palace]] for it, but settled for merely banishing him from the city.<ref>Douglas Hilt, "Chateaubriand and Napoleon" ''History Today'' (Dec 1973), Vol. 23 Issue 12, pp 831-838</ref>  Chateaubriand therefore retired, in 1807, to a modest estate he called ''Vallée-aux-Loups'' ("''Wolf Valley''"), in [[Châtenay-Malabry]], {{convert|11|km|mi|abbr=on}} south of central Paris, where he lived until 1817. Here he finished ''Les Martyrs'', which appeared in 1809, and began the first drafts of his ''Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe''. He was elected to the [[Académie française]] in 1811, but, given his plan to infuse his acceptance speech with criticism of the Revolution, he could not occupy his seat until after the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]]. His literary friends during this period included [[Germaine de Staël|Madame de Staël]], [[Joseph Joubert]] and [[Pierre-Simon Ballanche]].

=== Under the Restoration ===
{{further|Bourbon Restoration in France}}
[[File:Portrait_of_Francois_Rene_Vicomte_de_Chateaubriand,_1828.jpg|left|thumb|190px|Chateaubriand as a [[Peerage of France|Peer of France]] (1828)]]
Chateaubriand became a major figure in politics as well as literature.  At first he was a strong Royalist in the period up to 1824. His liberal phase lasted from 1824 to 1830. After that he was much less active.
After the fall of Napoleon, Chateaubriand rallied to the [[House of Bourbon|Bourbons]]. On 30 March 1814, he wrote a pamphlet against Napoleon, titled ''De Buonaparte et des Bourbons'', of which thousands of copies were published. He then followed [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]] into exile to [[Ghent]] during the [[Hundred Days]] (March–July 1815), and was nominated ambassador to Sweden.

After Napoleon's final defeat in the [[Battle of Waterloo]] (of which he heard the distant cannon rumblings outside Ghent), Chateaubriand became [[Peerage of France|peer of France]] and [[state minister]] (1815). In December 1815 he voted for [[Michel Ney|Marshal Ney]]'s execution. However, his criticism of [[Louis XVIII of France|King Louis XVIII]] in ''[[La Monarchie selon la Charte]]'', after the ''[[Chambre introuvable]]'' was dissolved, resulted in his disgrace. He lost his function of state minister, and joined the opposition, siding with the [[Ultra-royalist]] group supporting the future [[Charles X of France|Charles X]], and becoming one of the main writers of its mouthpiece, ''[[Le Conservateur]]''.<ref>{{Citation |last=Goldman |first=Lawrence |title=Conservative political thought from the revolutions of 1848 until the fin de siècle |date=2011 |work=The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought |pages=691–719 |editor-last=Stedman Jones |editor-first=Gareth |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-nineteenthcentury-political-thought/conservative-political-thought-from-the-revolutions-of-1848-until-the-fin-de-siecle/FA5FCFA3FCC597BCE799A33ADE196AF5 |access-date=2024-05-02 |series=The Cambridge History of Political Thought |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-43056-2 |editor2-last=Claeys |editor2-first=Gregory}}</ref>

Chateaubriand sided again with the Court after the murder of the [[Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry|Duc de Berry]] (1820), writing for the occasion the ''Mémoires sur la vie et la mort du duc''. He then served as ambassador to [[Prussia]] (1821) and the United Kingdom (1822), and even rose to the office of [[Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)|Minister of Foreign Affairs]] (28 December 1822 – 4 August 1824). A [[plenipotentiary]] to the [[Congress of Verona]] (1822), he decided in favor of the [[Quintuple Alliance]]'s [[Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis|intervention in Spain]] during the ''[[Trienio Liberal]]'', despite opposition from the [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]]. Chateaubriand was soon relieved of his office by Prime Minister [[Joseph de Villèle]] on 5 June 1824, over his objections to a law the latter proposed that would have resulted in the widening of the electorate. Chateaubriand was subsequently appointed French ambassador to [[Genoa]].<ref>{{cite book | author=Bernard, J.F. | title=Talleyrand: A Biography | publisher=Putnam | location=New York | year=1973 | isbn=0-399-11022-4 | url=https://archive.org/details/talleyrand00jack|page=503}}</ref>

Consequently, he moved towards the liberal opposition, both as a Peer and as a contributor to ''[[Journal des Débats]]'' (his articles there gave the signal of the paper's similar switch, which, however, was more moderate than ''[[Le National (newspaper)|Le National]]'', directed by [[Adolphe Thiers]] and [[Armand Carrel]]). Opposing Villèle, he became highly popular as a defender of [[Freedom of the press|press freedom]] and the [[Greek War of Independence|cause of Greek independence]]. After Villèle's downfall, Charles X appointed Chateaubriand ambassador to the Holy See in 1828, but he resigned upon the accession of the [[Jules, Prince de Polignac|Prince de Polignac]] as premier (November 1829).

In 1830, he donated a monument to the French painter [[Nicolas Poussin]] in the church of [[San Lorenzo in Lucina]] in Rome.

=== July Monarchy ===
{{further|July Monarchy}}
[[Image:House of Chateaubriand 120 rue du Bac.jpg|thumb|upright|His last home, 120 [[rue du Bac]], where Chateaubriand had an apartment on the ground floor]]

In 1830, after the [[July Revolution]], his refusal to swear allegiance to the new [[House of Orléans]] king [[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis-Philippe]] put an end to his political career. He withdrew from political life to write his ''[[Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe]]'' ("Memoirs from Beyond the Grave"), published posthumously in two volumes in 1849–1850. It reflects his growing pessimism regarding the future. Although his contemporaries celebrated the present and future as an extension of the past, Chateaubriand and the new Romanticists couldn't share their nostalgic outlook. Instead he foresaw chaos, discontinuity, and disaster. His diaries and letters often focused on the upheavals he could see every day — abuses of power, excesses of daily life, and disasters yet to come. His melancholy tone suggested astonishment, surrender, betrayal, and bitterness.<ref>Peter Fritzsche, "Chateaubriand's Ruins: Loss and Memory after the French Revolution." ''History and Memory'' 10.2 (1998): 102-117. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25681029 online]</ref><ref>Peter Fritzsche, "Specters of history: On nostalgia, exile, and modernity." ''American Historical Review'' 106.5 (2001): 1587-1618.</ref>

His ''Études historiques'' was an introduction to a projected ''History of France''. He became a harsh critic of the "bourgeois king" Louis-Philippe and the [[July Monarchy]], and his planned volume on the arrest of [[Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, duchess de Berry|Marie-Caroline, duchesse de Berry]] caused him to be (unsuccessfully) prosecuted.

Chateaubriand, along with other Catholic traditionalists such as [[Pierre-Simon Ballanche|Ballanche]] or, on the other side of the political divide, the socialist and republican [[Pierre Leroux]], was one of the few men of his time who attempted to conciliate the three terms of [[Liberté, égalité, fraternité|''Liberté'', ''égalité'' and ''fraternité'']], going beyond the antagonism between liberals and socialists as to what interpretation to give the seemingly contradictory terms.<ref name=Ozouf/> Chateaubriand thus gave a Christian interpretation of the revolutionary motto, stating in the 1841 conclusion to his ''Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe'':

{{bquote|Far from being at its term, the religion of the Liberator is now only just entering its third phase, the political period, liberty, equality, fraternity.<ref name=Ozouf>[[Mona Ozouf]], "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", in ''Lieux de Mémoire'' (dir. [[Pierre Nora]]), tome III, Quarto Gallimard, 1997, pp.4353–4389 {{in lang|fr}} (abridged translation, ''Realms of Memory'', Columbia University Press, 1996–1998 {{in lang|en}})</ref><ref>French: "''Loin d'être à son terme, la religion du Libérateur entre à peine dans sa troisième période, la période politique, liberté, égalité, fraternité.''</ref>}}

In his final years, he lived as a recluse in an apartment at 120 [[rue du Bac]], Paris, leaving his house only to pay visits to [[Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier|Juliette Récamier]] in [[Abbaye-aux-Bois]]. His final work, ''Vie de Rancé'', was written at the suggestion of his confessor and published in 1844. It is a biography of [[Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé]], a worldly seventeenth-century French aristocrat who withdrew from society to become the founder of the [[Trappist]] order of monks. The parallels with Chateaubriand's own life are striking. As late as 1845–1847, he also kept revising ''Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe'', particularly the earlier sections, as evidenced by the revision dates on the manuscript.

Chateaubriand died in Paris on 4 July 1848, aged 79, in the midst of the [[The Revolutions of 1848 in France|Revolution of 1848]], in the arms of his dear friend Juliette Récamier,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gribble|first=Francis Henry|url=http://archive.org/details/chateaubriandhis00grib|title=Chateaubriand and his court of women|date=1909|publisher=London : Chapman and Hall, Ltd.|others=The Centre for 19th Century French Studies - University of Toronto}}</ref> and was buried, as he had requested, on the tidal island [[Grand Bé]] near [[Saint-Malo]], accessible only when the tide is out.